Art History

The big topic of the past 48 hours or so of my life has been art history. I have a 1900-1950 art history midterm at 12 today.

As a graphic design major, we're required to take 3 quarters (what will be 2 semesters of art history) + 2 different art history classes of our choice. Since the 3 quarters left off around the turn of the 20th century, I thought I'd pick the next 2 classes to be more modern.

Now, I realize art history sounds totally intimidating. Give me a sheet with 60 Slide Identification names and tell me to memorize their name, artist & date... quite daunting. And for someone who is rather horrible at memorizing things this is no small feat.

Art history professors (and classmates) tend to be enormously helpful. My Survey of Western Art & Architecture professors used to hold (non-mandatory) breakfast study sessions on Saturday mornings the week before the exam. Since it wa a larger class (around 60) it was really nice to get a little bit more 1 on 1 time for questions. This quarter, someone in my class voluntarily set up a group study session in the library last night. Super helpful! Our professor had given us a full write up for a study guide- so nice! So we were able to talk through possible essay questions & some unknown terms.

As of a few minutes ago, I've cut the 60 images down to only NINE ones that have been tripping me up! Not bad! Plus I still have a few hours to go before test time. The nice thing about the study session last night was that I felt that I could actually talk through topics rather than just rattle them off the top of my head = better memory.

So, the moral of the story: If you're coming in and required to take art history class.. Don't worry!